I did a Mr Miyagi-style squash of this mosquito between my thumb and index finger. On my thumb is an imprint (top), the body stuck to my finer (below). Normally I wouldn’t be so excited to post death-related material but these buggers are brutal in NE DC and leave me looking like a leper at times with red marks all over. Funny they were nowhere to be seen in Adams Morgan.

Usually artist’s renderings of the future are abnormally happy, artificial, perfect little worlds. The In Towner, some DC neighborhood rag, has renderings that are also happy and artificial but fortunately not quite perfect:

This one I like because, while the happy people and 2-D school bus fit my idea of an artist’s rendering, the still-missing letters on the Marie Reed Community Center do not. Very realistic. Very cool.

This one’s a bit more subtle (makes me excited for the next In Towner – what will they hide next?!). Pylons and related municipal junk are ever-present, regardless of whether or not there’s construction going on. I love that it’ll be there in the future too.

The Diner is a restaurant in DC that’s pretty cool/normal. They got a new sign though that makes me think maybe they’re becoming less cool: crazy fancy? (It’s not crazy fancy at all. What the heck are they talking about?)

America is cool again. The Diner jumps aboard.

You can make fine art out of lint. The most efficient way is to get the lint from the lint trap in the dryer. However, purists prefer to, each day, pick a small portion of lint off their clothes and collect them until enough accumulates to make art. My all time hero has collected decades years worth of lint out of his belly button. Unfortunately it stops there – he has yet to make art out of it. Art by Stela Kaloyancheva.

Ever started parallel parking only to have your stick get jammed and refuse to go into reverse? Sucks. Fortunately there was an extra large spot that could be coasted into. Oh, except “park” is on the other side of “reverse” and if you can’t go beyond reverse and into park you can’t take the keys out of the ignition. And therefore you can’t lock the car. And therefore you can’t go home to urinate without risking getting your car stolen (which would be difficult because it would require a second person to push the car in reverse out of the parking spot while the other mans the wheel, but still).

The good thing is that the roof had been popping off for about 6 months now but we’ve been too lazy to take it in to get fixed. This way we didn’t even have to drive it in to the shop!

At this point I’d still recommend the little bugger but that feeling may change if new problems arise after the warranty has ended.

Another quality sign in the apartment building elevator.

From the people that brought us blueberry pie flavored coffee. (I googled it but can’t find evidence, I swear I saw it though, one day, cameraless, in Toronto). I guess there are some things in nature that actually have this type of yellow color.

These colors were nice too. Funny thing is that before noticing these I was actually thinking “Boy, these pastries actually look kinda good!” I think I even saw tasty-looking croissants. Or maybe that’s a false memory.

Then there was this. Freshness can’t fix unnaturalness. The other funny thing was the choice of small font for “muffins delivered daily”. Isn’t small font like that reserved for things you’re trying to not draw attention to? Maybe true 7-Eleveners don’t like fresh muffins? (or fresh hot dogs for that matter?).

I mean, I can count like 20+ different types (brand, size, type of vitamin added) of orange juice in this photo alone and that’s not including the ones that are too small to see. Maybe I was disappointed cuz my expectations were high – we were at Harris Teeter for the first time. Everyone kept telling me it’s a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joes but instead it’s just a cleaner and better-stocked Safeway. Thirty kinds of orange juice, plenty of cereals that contain marshmallows and/or neon colors, a good Hormel selection (I like to put Hormel brand pork products in the blender for a quick high protein smoothie before I work out).

A brief walk in an alley revealed 3 things:

A gay vehicle whose (humorous) significance may only be recognized by Persians.

Low quality stencil graffiti.

A church that worships the Redskins.

Did some late night clubbin’ the other night and was feeling a little hungry like I do after a long night of partying so I got a slice of pizza. It was actually some of the better pizza I’ve had lately so I was sad to lose some of it when I horked up some foil that I accidentally chewed off. But in the long run it was for the best because now I don’t have Alzheimer’s. Plus, it was exciting to be able to squeeze both it and the regurgitated pizza into the same shot (hard to do with a cameraphone)